About Sovereignty

Brunei and Singapore celebrated 40 years of currency interchangeability by releasing new $20 notes with a same back - scenes from Singapore and Brunei, but with different fronts - Brunei $20 with their sultan, and Singapore $20 with Yusof Ishak.

At the press conference, Brunei described the notes as signifying that the countries were two sovereign nations on one side, and the close cooperation we had on the other. One comment left on the ST online was that this currency interchangeability meant that Singapore was vulnerable to the manipulations of Brunei. For example. North Korea is believed to be counterfeiting US currency. Our arrangement with Brunei would open us to the same risks.

However, that is only a possibility and not a probability, and the comment was alarmist at best and I don't think anyone took it seriously. However, what is interesting was mention of sovereignty by the Brunei leader, and the confidence that this 40 year cooperation should continue. Actually, if either country should be worried, it should be Brunei, as they have the natural resources to back their currency, but Singapore's backing is based on years of building up the reserves. In the early years, they probably had a greater risk that Singapore would just print money, and flood Brunei with "cheap" Singapore dollars. Even now, Brunei with less than 1/10th of Singapore's population probably have more reason to feel threatened but does not.

Both countries deal with each other with mutual respect as sovereign nations. There is no question that this arrangement would threaten the sovereignty of either.

In contrast, Malaysia feels their sovereignty is threatened all the time, whether it's the water issue, the causeway/bridge issue, our land reclamation programme, or our investment (or consultation) in the Iskandar Development Region.

Indonesia also feels necessary to raise the issue of their sovereignty over the Defence Cooperation Agreement which was tied to the Extradition pact. Now they want to amend the DCA because they feel their sovereignty is being threatened.

Thailand also felt necessary to raise the "Singapore boogeyman" with their concerns over the security of their mobile phone communications because of the Singapore ownership of one of their telco. The coup general has since admitted that it was a strategy to rally support of the the Thai people.

I thought it interesting that Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, all vastly bigger countries with larger population than Singapore would worry that a small island state of 4m people could threatened their sovereignty, while Brunei, one of the smaller countries in the world (tho still larger than Singapore) with a population less than 1/10th of Singapore is not.

Of course, it's arguable whether a currency interchangeability agreement is more threatening than any of the other issues. Probably not.